Yesterday the Husker Twitter-verse went into a frenzy as we were all geeked up to have Kyle McCord visit from Ohio State to be our transfer QB that would get us to a bowl game for 2024. Then all of a sudden Steve Wiltfong said “hold my beer” and came with this bomb
Let’s go back to the beginning with Raiola. He was committed to Ohio State, opened things back up and Nebraska was very much in the hunt. I had spoken with Matt Davison about NIL at Nebraska before, he thinks we are in a good spot. But when bringing up Raiola he came with “that would be a whole different situation… 7 figures for multiple years.” Now he wasn’t quite saying we couldn’t do it, but my read on the situation was that a 7 figure NIL deal would be so lopsided for what we are currently doing with our football team that it just wasn’t ready to be handled.
And I don’t mean that from just the donors and/or 1890. I mean that even Rhule didn’t really want to be in a situation where a player that had done nothing for your team was making the most money by far within your program. So while we weren’t quite there with donations yet, our head coach wasn’t quite there for wanting to do that anyway. All a moot point as Georgia stepped up their offer, was the National Champion, and off he went to committing to Georgia and moving there for his Senior year.
Nebraska Goes Through The 2023 Season
We all know the story, Nebraska with competent QB play could have been to a bowl game. But as it stood, we were playing guys that were runners first and passing ability was a secondary skillset. Chubba Purdy who probably was the best suited out of the 3 sat out the majority of the 2023 season being injured, so he was barely even an option until the end of the year.
I’ll do an article on McCord once he commits, but essentially we go after 5 guys and McCord we end up landing on as our guy. The big catch was the fact that McCord was not going to even visit here unless we verbally told him we would give him the money he was asking for (north of 7 figures). We secure that from a donor. McCord heads to Lincoln yesterday.
Then Something Weird Happens
We give Donnie Raiola an extension and a raise, and all of a sudden Matt Rhule telling the Raiola’s that it was never about the recruit and always about his belief in Donnie was backed up.
While Dylan Raiola is all set to move into his housing in Athens next week, something crazy happens down there. I’m not entirely sure what it was, but it was enough for them to make the call to Nebraska. The rumor is that they tried messing with his NIL package they had worked out. Now, keep in mind we have Kaelin committed and are all set to tell McCord he’s our guy yesterday. But once 7 figures is given to one QB, why not the #1 QB in the nation we told “no” to originally? The phone call is made that we aren’t as against giving you this as we once were, and are you still interested?
The News Leaks
So everyone is confused why this leaked yesterday. My best guess quite frankly is that we told McCord you are our guy, just want you to be aware that the #1 QB in the nation is visiting this weekend. We’d like to have you on board to show him the ropes so we can hand the keys over later. Remember, even though Raiola is one of the top recruits in the country, he wasn’t planning on starting at Georgia as they return 2nd Team SEC QB Carson Beck. So him coming here doesn’t all of a sudden make it so he has to sit the bench (though one would wonder if you’re coming to a team that hasn’t made a bowl game in 7 years that you should start).
My Read As Of Right Now
The timing of this just leads me to believe we very well could get both of these guys. There’s no way McCord visited here and said “no way i’m out” so our Plan B is the #1 QB recruit in the country. Nebraska isn’t that kind of program.
I think they had to tell McCord what was up, he said he’s ok with it, and Raiola was informed we booked his official visit for this weekend. If I had to predict, McCord will commit while here and Raiola will come and commit this weekend giving us time to possibly shuffle some things around and grab another commit/transfer or two.
It feels good to have some positive news coming our way for once. Get pumped Husker fans, because I think we are reeling both of them in.
